I’m Esther T. Jones, I’m in my mid-20’s, I love cosplay, gardening, and music, (I studied classical & jazz flute and piano in college) and I’ve written a novel! (I’ve also got a WIP that I sometimes tweet about and that I will be mentioning on here in detail at some point.)

You want swordfights? Got ‘em. Bandits? Got those too. Knights? Yep! Pirates? A driving force. Kings and nobles, and common folk and slaves? Castles and Dungeons? Secrets and Betrayal? PLOT TWISTS!? All. Right. Here. And of course, horses. All the horses!

Let me tell you about some of the characters:

Tedenbarr(Teddy) – the titular hero. Blond, blue eyed, 20 years old at the start of our story. He lives on an island of slaves named Have Lath, and is desperately in love with a free woman. Despite having reached almost to adulthood, he can be painfully naïve and tends to live in the epic poetic saga of his world that he has memorised line for line. He also loves animals.

Keira (Pronounced Kay-ee-rah) – Curly red hair, green eyes, speaks in a rich brogue. Tedenbarr’s fiancée; secretly of course, her aunt would never approve of her marrying a slave boy. About 19. Her father disappeared on one of his travels and never returned. When Tedenbarr also disappears during a routine voyage, amidst rumours that the Black Sailed Pirates have returned to the Sheana Sea, she fears the worst.

Lach – A boy of about 15/16, he is Tedenbarr’s best friend on “The Sailing Prison.” Together they work to escape the pirates boarding the ship, but get separated, and Tedenbarr alone makes it to the shores of the Eastern Kingdom. His face, along with all those who went down with the ship, plagues Tedenbarr at night.

Black Crow – Leader of the notorious bandit group living in the Linkwood Forest. Tedenbarr encounters his second in command, and right hand man – Light-Fingers (also known as Amiri of Caro) – in a series of events that take place before our story starts (detailed in chapter five in a flashback).

Shai Ten – Leader of the Resistance in the capital city of Aistes. He hails from one of the desert tribes in the Eastern Kingdom. After his cousin sold herself into slavery to buy them food for a year, and subsequently died an untimely death, he threw himself into the makings of an uprising to try and better the lives of the citizens of Aistes.

King Elymas Oglath – Feared by many, hated by most, loved by none. The sole remaining member of the Oglath family after the deaths of his brother and nephew, he rules with an iron fist. His most recent headache is the return of the Black Sailed Pirates, thirsty for revenge because he drove them out of the Sheana Sea 15 years ago on charges that they murdered his nephew.

The Pirates – a terrifying menace, no ship in the King’s Navy can outrun them, and they aim to sail up and down the coastlines of the Sheana sea, leaving destruction and ruin wherever they go. Their ace in the hole is their ability to set the sea on fire, hence the burning cutlasses emblazoned on their black flags and sails. Their ship is named Fraecana, after the spectral goddess of the underworld that many people in Tedenbarr’s world believe in.

There are many more characters, but those are the figures that are a constant during Tedenbarr’s travels, either at the forefront as he interacts with people, or in his thoughts, or as a looming presence in the background.

Tedenbarr’s world is filled with people who believe that there are greater forces at work, and though Tedenbarr himself doesn’t put too much stock in the fables and legends that he can recite by heart, here is a little bit of what people believe:

The goddess Myrna rules the sea, Fraecana the underworld. Ferra is a demigod, a trickster and fleet of foot, always getting himself and mortals into trouble. The clashes between himself and Agon – the heroic human king at the centre of the Agon cycle – are legendary. Shirye is the patron god of forests and hunters.

Shrines exist all across the Kingdom of the West. They are dark, unpleasant places, thick with incense, and attended by greedy cultists who delight in swindling poor superstitious people out of what little money they have. Lach’s mother fell victim to one such scheme.

Let’s talk places!

Aistes – Capital city of the Kingdom of the West. Currently hiding a long forgotten secret, and the centre of what promises to be a bloody civil war between rich free-folk and poor slaves/servants.

Cal-Cah Mountains – an imposing mountain range in the Kingdom of the East that is very dangerous to navigate due to the bandits that often waylay merchant caravans and lone travellers.

Dirca Desert – a hot, dry expanse that marks the borders between the Kingdoms of East and West. Also inhabited by bandits, and very easy to get lost in.

Dolphin Bay – a secluded little retreat close to the major villages of Slern and Bajai. It’s also the first place that Tedenbarr dares to think he could be more than a slave.

Have Lath – Tedenbarr’s home. Only outcasts, soldiers and their families, and slaves live here. The island helps protect the mainland from the savage storms of the North Seas.

Linkwood Forest – the domain of yet another band of outlaws, wanted throughout the Western kingdom for crimes against the House of Jor, and against the Monarchy. Not even travelling along the King’s Highway is safe anymore with those rapscallions lurking behind every tree and shrub.

Old A’an – a fabled, long abandoned underground city where an ancient civilization used to live. Tedenbarr has always dreamed of visiting, but no one he knows has an inkling of where Old A’an might be located.

Sarenji – a major port town, and one the Black Sailed Pirates have their eye on after attacking Tedenbarr’s cargo ship.

Slvyn Reigh – a minor point of interest in the middle of the Sheana Sea. Legend has it that Agon once went head-to-head with the sea goddess Myrna in a fierce but good spirited competition atop a small, stony island, and the peculiar rock formation is all that now remains.

Whew! That was a lot! Please enjoy perusing the moodboard (which also contains some out of context spoilers – I’ll leave it to you to figure out what they are). Let me know if you would like to see a more detailed breakdown of some of the main characters, as well as the many secondary and even minor characters that I didn’t mention here.

Tedenbarr of Have Lath is available from Amazon in both paperback and ebook form (do you have Kindle Unlimited? Congrats, Tedenbarr of Have Lath is now yours, free!) and I’d be more than thrilled to answer any questions you want to shoot my way! This story is my baby, and I love talking to readers about it!